Tag: Obstetrics
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Divine birth: The birth of Moses
Moses was born in the year 2377 after the creation of the world. He was born circumcised, and was able to walk immediately after his birth; but according to another story he was circumcised on the eighth day after his birth. A peculiar and glorious light filled the entire house at his birth, indicating that…
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Divine birth: Aphrodite born from the foam of the sea
The goddess of love, lust, and lasciviousness, Aphrodite (Venus) rose naked from the sea, her DNA reputedly derived from the discarded organs of her cruelly gelded grandfather Uranus. Each year she is admired in her dishabille by throngs of tourist visiting the Uffizi museum in Florence. In one of several contradictory legends, Uranus (Roman Saturn,…
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Divine birth: Pegasus, born from Medusa’s blood
Pegasus, the divine, winged white horse, was the offspring of the god Poseidon and the gorgon Medusa. He was born from Medusa’s blood after she was beheaded by Perseus, arising from her head or from the blood that had seeped into the earth. Because he created the spring of Hippocrene, held sacred by the Muses,…
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Divine birth: birth of John the Baptist
In the gospel according to St. Luke we read how the aging priest Zachariah was punished with dumbness for not believing that his elderly wife would bear him a son. He regained his speech after he wrote down the predestined name of the newborn child, John. There was in the days of Herod, a certain…
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Divine birth: Athena, born from her father’s head
Athena (Minerva), the goddess of war and wisdom, had a strange birth. Her father Zeus (Jupiter) had swallowed his pregnant consort Metis (“wisdom”), because he was afraid she would bear a son who would overthrow him. Then he developed a severe headache that nothing would cure. So Hephestos, god of fire and blacksmiths, took an…
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Divine birth: Eve, fashioned from Adam’s rib
It was written in the Bible that it is not good for the man to be alone. So the Lord fashioned from Adam’s rib a companion by an innovative birthing method, as documented in the fresco of Michelangelo. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he…
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Broken water
Erika L. LundgrinCleveland, Ohio, United States A young girl is sitting in the room, pregnant, water broken, waiting. I know by a quick glance in her chart that we have no information about her in the system. A good history will provide all of the important details of her pregnancy: a small challenge, one I…
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Historical contraception: birth control before “the pill”
Emily R. W. DavidsonChapel Hill, United States Since the advent of the birth control pill, birth control advocates claim that women’s control over their reproductive potential increased the proportion of women in the US workforce over the course of the 20th century (Fig 1). Long before the oral contraceptive pill’s emergence, however, women found ways…
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Mildred Thornton Stahlman, pioneer in neonatology
Corey ReeseNashville, Tennessee, United States In the 1950s and early 1960s, Mildred Thornton Stahlman, MD, began practicing medicine during a unique period in pediatrics when her chosen subspecialty was in its infancy. She was one of a small group of physicians around the world whose every discovery was new and had a significant impact. Combining a…